I like this. It's good that the timer is on screen. It encourages me to push my luck in grabbing just a few more before the roles reverse. Me every time they clump up while chasing me then the roles reverse: "You thought you were trapping me, but it was I who was trapping you" then I get a bunch of points.
Thanks, I wanted to add a progress bar style of timer but didn't have the spare chars. Before starting to code, I thought the idea was very easy to implement and could work. The first tests showed that it was very easy to group them and dodge no matter how many they were, as they all took the same path. I tweaked the chasing logic a bit to make it more difficult. But I could not fix that they are slippery to catch in the open unless you take them to the corners. So the strategy for the last seconds of running away is to bring them by the walls and let them come close.